LVF link to neo-Nazis unearthed

The names, addresses and telephone numbers of members of the neo-Nazi group Combat 18 have been passed to detectives investigating the murder of the Northern Ireland solicitor Rosemary Nelson.

Details of Combat 18's links with the Loyalist Volunteer Force - the organisation which placed the bomb under Nelson's car - were found during a search of the home of Ian Thompson, a loyalist who has been charged with an offence connected to the solicitor's murder.

Thompson was arrested at his home in Hamilton's Bawn, a Protestant village outside Armagh city, more than a fortnight ago. Senior RUC detectives said police in England planned to arrest and question several Combat 18 activists about their links with Ulster loyalists.

The information on Combat 18 and the LVF has been handed over by the RUC to Colin Port, the English police officer heading the inquiry into the Nelson killing.

'I wouldn't be surprised if a few of those people don't get a knock on the door from their local police forces in England in the near future,' a senior RUC officer said.

Along with the personal details of Combat 18 members, including their leader Bill Browning, a former British soldier from south London, the RUC found scores of race-hate CDs. The CDs of racist skinhead bands were being sold to raise money in Britain for the LVF. Browning has a conviction for assaulting a gay man and another for distributing race hate material.

Thompson, also a former British soldier who served in the locally recruited Royal Irish Regiment, was the LVF's main link with Combat 18. He went to Wigan for an event organised by Combat 18 in 1998 which almost degenerated into a war between rival factions of the fascist group. Members from North-East England protested at Thompson's plan to take over an LVF-aligned flute band to play at the function.

The North-East branch of Combat 18, organised principally around a core of Sunderland soccer hooligans, supports the largest loyalist paramilitary force, the Ulster Defence Association. When they learnt that an LVF-allied band was to play, they threatened to disrupt the social. The invitation to the band was quietly dropped.

The investigation into Combat 18's connections to the LVF will focus on a nucleus of English fascists based in North-West England, particularly a group in Bolton. They include a tat tooist who comes to Northern Ireland regularly to engrave the image of murdered LVF founder Billy Wright on to local loyalists.

It was Thompson who invited Browning along with 24 other neo-Nazis to Northern Ireland last summer for the loyalist marching season. While the Combat 18 delegation were staying in Porta-down, the LVF's Mid-Ulster stronghold, members of the neo-Nazi group attacked a Chinese family living in the town's staunchly loyalist Corcrain estate.

Some loyalists, however, are extremely wary of making contact with neo-Nazi organisations such as Combat 18. During their tour of Northern Ireland last summer, Browning was taken to meet the leader of the LVF in Portadown. Local loyalist sources said the LVF boss was unimpressed by Combat 18 and its professed solidarity with the Protestant cause.

An LVF spokesman denied it had any links with the far- right faction. It had no intention of forging links with them either, he said.

His group will be aware of past links between Combat 18 and the UDA. The UDA's gunrunning operations in Britain were severely compromised due to their connections with Combat 18, particularly with the convicted murderer and neo-Nazi activist, Charlie Sergeant.

Last year The Observer revealed that Sergeant had been allowed to carry out racist attacks in London while working as an informant for the Metropolitan Police. Sergeant was recruited to spy on UDA members in the capital involved in smuggling arms to Ulster.

One of the UDA's English members, who was arrested on arms charges in the early Nineties, was Frank Portanari. Now out of jail, Portanari heads a pro-loyalist campaign group in London called the British/Ulster Alliance.